Image forming material, color filter master plate, and color filter

Abstract

An image recording material provided with an image recording layer including a polymer compound which contains a functional group with a hydrophilic / hydrophobic character thereof being changeable by heat, acid, or irradiation and which is directly chemically bonded to the substrate, wherein the image recording layer is heated, treated with acid, or irradiated to change the hydrophilic / hydrophobic character of a surface of the image recording layer and organic or inorganic molecules for forming a visible image are adsorbed at regions thereof where the hydrophilic / hydrophobic character has been changed.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]1. Field of the Invention[0002]The present invention relates to an image forming material, particularly an image forming material on which an image can be easily formed with a high resolution and which is useful as a display material and a pattern formation material, to a color filter master plate suitable for application to a staining method for producing a color filter to be employed in a liquid crystal display device or a solid imaging device and, to a color filter as well.[0003]2. Description of the Related Art[0004]Conventionally, a variety of images forming materials have been used as display materials and pattern forming materials. In general, when they are used for carrying out image formation, a material, e.g., a colored material such as an ink, is imagewise deposited on the surface of a white image receiving material such as a paper medium, or a material, e.g., a nontransparent material such as a pigment, is imagewise deposited on a transpa...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0029]In light of the above-described disadvantages of the conventional technology, an object of the present invention is to provide an image forming material applicable to a wide range of fields and which is capable of forming an image with high sensitivity by exposure or heating, providing an image with high resolution and sharpness irrespective of a surface area thereof, and directly forming an image based on digital data using an infrared laser or the like.

[0030]Another object of the present invention is to provide a color filter master plate capable of forming pixels, a black matrix, or other patterns, having fineness and even hue and easily forming a color filter having a multi-color constitution in a single plane, that is, constructed as an even thin film. Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a color filter having fine pixels with a plurality of uniform hues, and further having a black matrix in a single plane, using such a color filter master plate.

[0034]A nontransparent material and a dye for forming a visible image are preferably selected from organic or inorganic dyes and pigments due to the ease with which they are obtained.

[0036]The polymer compound having the polarity conversion group to be employed in the image recording layer of the image forming material, for example, is bonded to a substrate directly or through a main chain polymer compound at the terminal and is firmly adsorbed in the surface of the recording layer in an ionic manner depending on a polarity of the organic or inorganic molecules for formation of visible patterns, so that both an image region and a non-image region have high strength and wear resistance. As a result, even if the recording layer is thin, a high strength image can be formed, and if a dye is used as the organic molecules or a variety of pigments are used as the inorganic molecules, are adsorbed to the polarity conversion group in an ionic manner and the adsorbed molecules are firmly fixed in approximately a mono-molecular film state, so that possible to form an image with a high density and excellent sharpness even when using a thin film. Further, in the present invention, the polarity conversion group, which has adsorptivity with respect to the organic or inorganic molecules, has a graft chain structure with a high mobility, so that as compared with molecule adsorption by a general cross-linked polymer film, an adsorption speed is extremely high and the amount of the molecules adsorptive per unit of surface area is increased. In the image forming material of the present invention, it is possible to further improve sensitivity and make the image recording layer thin while maintaining the image quality. At the same time since the polymer compound composing the image recording layer is directly chemically bonded to the substrate (image receiving material), the image recording layer is excellent in durability even if it is a thin layer.

[0040]Further, the color filter of the present invention is obtained by changing the hydrophilic / hydrophobic character of a surface of the image recording layer by applying heat or irradiation to the color filter and causing a dye or a pigment to be adsorbed in regions where the hydrophilic / hydrophobic character has been changed.

[0044]The polymer compound, having the polarity conversion group, to be used in the recording layer, for example, is bonded with the substrate or a lower layer, which will be described later, directly or through a main chain polymer compound at the terminal of the polymer compound and a dye for forming the colored pixels or inorganic fine particles for forming the black matrix are firmly adsorbed by the recording layer surface in an ionic manner corresponding to the polarity thereof, so that both the image region and the non-image region have high strength and wear resistance. As a result, the dye or the pigment is adsorbed on the polarity conversion group in an ionic manner and firmly adsorbed in a nearly mono-molecular film state and therefore, even if the recording layer is thin, it is possible to form pixels or the black matrix with high density and excellent sharpness.

Problems solved by technology

The process is thus a complicated image forming method.

Further, it is difficult to form an image with a high resolution on an image receiving material with a large surface area or to form an image with a high density on thin-film image receiving material by conventional and general image forming methods.

No technology capable of stably fixing a nontransparent material or a dye on a desired image receiving material based on the digitized data has been established as of yet.

If a short circuit occurs in that case, line defects are generated resulting in a decrease in production yield.

Further, there are problems with this method in that, theoretically, it is difficult to apply the method to, for example, a mosaic arrangement other than a stripe arrangement and the transparent electrodes are difficult to control.

Since a suitable ink has a high viscosity, filtering is difficult to carry out and defects easily appear in portions where dust or foreign substances are present or where an ink binder causes gelling.

There are also problems with respect to printing precision, positioning precision, line width precision, and plane smoothness.

In the pigment dispersion method, it is essential to make the pigment fine in order to achieve high fineness in the display device, but new problems arise with the achievement of greater fineness including an increase in viscosity of a dispersion and precipitation of the pigment due to aggregation.

The method is unsatisfactory in that the conversion to the pigment by the chemical method, the thermal method, or the photodecomposition method is insufficient and that the intrinsic properties of the dye are lost due to the conversion.

In particular, since a degree of conversion to the pigment differs depending on temperature, there is a problem in that coloring with different hues results depending on a heating temperature, and accordingly, no color filter with sufficiently practical hue stabilization has been obtained as of yet.

In the case of solid imaging devices such as CCD and C-MOS, it has become clear that roughness due to pigment dispersion, which has not been a problem before, affects the performance.

Also, with of these methods, the steps are complicated and rather many steps are required to complete the color filters.

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